


While You Wait

by VivatDraco



Category: Discworld - Pratchett
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-05-22
Updated: 2007-05-22
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:36:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VivatDraco/pseuds/VivatDraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Angua and Sally encounter an occupational hazard and find themselves waiting around a bit before they can get on with their (un)lives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	While You Wait

“Bugger,” said Sally.  
“Yes,” agreed Angua. “That pretty much sums things up.”  
The two shades stared down at their bodies. Or, more correctly, Angua’s body and Sally’s pile of dust.  
“That could have gone a lot better. Run it by me again?”  
Angua sat down on the floor. Her shade was human formed, though the body sprawled on the floor was not. The human form was the habit of a lifetime, and, apparently, more than a lifetime. She sighed and began recounting the events leading up to the current sad state of affairs.  
“We tailed the thieves down Twinkle Street and into the Shades. Lost them for a bit by Sweetheart Lane, I went and changed, had a sniff around and picked the scent up again. We back them into this warehouse and you are about to the make the arrest when he slams on that great big salamander lamp, you take the opportunity to crumble to dust and I can’t see a damned thing, while the overwhelming stench of panicked vampire means I can’t smell the bastard behind the lamp cocking his crossbow and shooting at me. I lie bleeding to death and he gets away with his mates." She stopped to sigh. "At least they didn’t have the forethought to use a silver tipped arrow. Mister Vimes is going to go absolutely bloody _spare_.”

“Ah. Yes,” said Sally, after digesting the information. “I _think_ I can see where things went wrong.”  
“Oh _good_. We’ll make a copper of you yet. I thought you carried the kit anyway?”  
“Oh, yes.” Sally’s spirit looked embarrassed. “Only you know how Washpot’s always waving about those pamphlets of his? I guess he didn’t realise they might have a similar effect on me as holy symbols...”  
Angua covered her eyes with a semi-transparent hand. “Oh _gods_. And you forgot to get a refill?” she hazarded.  
“Yeah. Sorry sergeant.”  
Angua sighed. “Well at least you’ve probably given Mister Vimes that excuse he’s always wanted for banning religious propaganda from the Watch House.”

COULD I OFFER YOU LADIES A DRINK WHILE YOU WAIT?  
Angua turned to the robed figure that had appeared between them. She didn’t have to ask who it was. The scythe was a bit of a giveaway.  
“If you’re going to make some awful pun about sprits then I swear, bony anthropomorphic personification or not, I _will_ bite you.” She was not in the mood for this.  
ACTUALLY I WAS GOING TO SUGGEST TEA, BUT I CAN ATTEMPT A PUN IF YOU WISH.  
“I meant it.”  
“You don’t normally turn up for this sort of thing, do you?” asked Sally hurriedly. “I mean, I must have crumbled a dozen times since being in this city and you never showed up before.”  
OH, IT’S ALL ABOUT GIVING THE SERVICE A FRIENDLIER IMAGE.  
“Excuse me? You’re _Death_. The ultimate reality! You’re not meant to be friendly. It’s not like going to the hairdressers and getting the coffee and mindless gossip thrown in free,” said Angua.  
Death managed to look uncomfortable, insofar as a being with a face fixed in a permanently toothy grin can. I’VE BEEN TOLD I SHOULD TRY TO BE MORE OF A PEOPLE PERSON.  
This was met with two politely blank stares.  
“And what does that entail?” asked Sally, at last.  
LOOK, I DON’T KNOW WHAT IT’S MEANT TO MEAN EITHER. IT’S NOT LIKE I MAKE THESE THINGS UP ON MY OWN.  
Sally coughed politely. “Well, thanks all the same but I think we’d rather have that tea when we’re back in our bodies.”  
Death would have sniffed indignantly, if he had a nose. SUIT YOURSELVES, he said, and faded into the background.  
“I worry about him, you know,” said Sally, staring at the point previously occupied by Death.  
“Why? He’s Death. And if you think he’s odd, go and talk to his granddaughter some day. Every time I think my family is weird, I reassure myself that at least my grandfather just collected hunting trophies, not souls.”  
”_Death_ has a granddaughter?”  
“Yes. Drinks in Biers sometimes.”  
Sally thought about this, and then decided that she _really_ didn’t want to. She twiddled her thumbs.

“So!” she said, brightly. “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”  
“Only until moonrise for me. Assuming we’re not found first.”  
“Well that’s not likely. No-one knows exactly where we are and the only ones capable of tracking us are, in fact, us…”  
“Exactly.”  
Sally twiddled her thumbs some more. Angua was not hugely annoyed about being dead, at least temporarily so. She was far more annoyed that it was _Sally_ she was spending her time in limbo with. _Sally_, of all people. She wondered idly if one spirit could strangle another, because if Sally tried to make conversation again she was going to put it to the test.  
“You know…” Sally said slowly. Angua bared her teeth. Sally continued; “There’s a slight tilt to the floor in here.”  
“So?” growled Angua.  
Sally grinned. “So-o. Your body bled quite a bit and it’s all sort of oozing along down the slope...” She left the sentence unfinished, letting Angua work out what she was getting at.  
“Oh _no_.” Angua covered her eyes again. This was not _fair_!  
“Looks like I’ll be up before moonrise after all!” Sally clapped her hands and rubbed them together, looking far too pleased with herself. She resumed her usual meek expression when she saw the look on Angua’s face. “Trust me, I’m no happier about this than you are; do you have any idea how _bad_ werewolf blood tastes? I mean, I know you guys think _we _smell bad, but your blood is absolutely _gross_.”  
“Thanks, that really comforts me Sally,” said Angua. She was never going to be allowed to forget this. Her blood restoring a damned _vampire_.

The trickle of blood was edging closer and closer to the sad pile of ash. Sally was watching it like a cat considering breakfast. Angua remained (rather sulkily, thought Sally) silent.  
Finally Sally leapt up. “Want me to carry you back to the watch house?” she asked, as the blood oozed within a few millimetres of her remains.  
“Over my-“ Angua stopped, realising that actually, yes, this _was_ over her dead body. “Just get Carrot,” she growled. “He knows what to do.”  
“Right-o. I’ll put the kettle on for you, shall I?”  
Angua couldn’t answer, as the blood touched the ash, and Sally disappeared from the shadowy half world of the spirits. The pile of dust plumed upwards into Sally’s shape. She sniffed her arm, grimaced, then grinned at the spot where she remembered Angua’s shade standing. She retrieved Angua’s emergency bag and donned the shift she found there.  
“Sorry, just borrowing it, you know how it is,” she said to the lifeless room, and then ran out of the warehouse.

Angua made a rude sign at her retreating back.

\----

Some time later, once the moon had risen, Angua woke up, in her body once again, in an otherwise bare room at Pseudopolis Yard. Had she been in human form, she would have groaned. Since she wasn’t she let out an unenthusiastic wolfy grunt. She changed and stretched, easing the stiffness from her limbs. She considered that not many people had to massage the rigor mortis out of their legs before getting up. Except possibly Reg Shoe and his Zombie brethren. And Vampires maybe. And... All right, so it might be a surprisingly large number of people/creatures/miscellaneous beings that did but it was still a small number in comparison to the ones who didn’t have to deal with such things.

There was a polite knock on the door. Angua hurriedly threw on the shirt and trousers that had been considerately left for her.  
“Come in,” she called, as she tucked the shirt in. Carrot entered.  
“Are you feeling better?” he asked, as if she had just recovered from a cold rather than risen from the dead.  
“I’ve had better days. Bit stiff.”  
“I’m sure that’ll wear off soon. Do you need anything?” asked Carrot.  
Angua thought for a moment. “There are two things I’d like,” she said.  
“Sally said you might like a cup of tea.”  
Angua grimaced. “Yes, she probably did. And the _second_ thing I’d like, is to strangle that damned vampire.”  
“Mister Vimes frowns upon violence between watchmen, Angua.”  
“Oh, I don't know. I think he might smile a little bit in this case."


End file.
